You're probably scratching your head wondering what perimeter lighting is, exactly. Well, we define it as the ability to light the entire perimeter of your vehicle at will. Why would you want to do that? Simple. Sometimes in our world of off-highway travel, we need to throw light somewhere besides straight ahead.
It's for this reason we installed full perimeter lighting on our project F-150. We approached the design of our lighting system with two major goals. One, we wanted to install lights that generated some serious candlepower. There's nothing worse than weenie, feeble, yellow lights. If you're going to endure the monotonous work of wiring lights, they may as well be good ones. Two, they had to be totally unobtrusive. In other words, they needed to be strategically placed so that they could provide maximum light without hindering the vehicle's capabilities or getting in our way.
As a general rule, you'll want your most powerful lights pointing forward in the direction you travel at speed. On the front of the Redhead we installed a pair of burn-your-retinas-to-a-crisp Lightforce Professional Lighting Systems 240 Xenon Gas Discharge lamps. These HID lamps are widely regarded as some of the most powerful off-highway lights available. Proven by desert racers, these lamps have a light output that is nothing short of mind-blowing. They generate three times more light than the brightest halogen bulb, yet they draw an amazingly low 2.92 amps per light. In addition, their build quality is staggeringly tough, they feature a revolutionary internal ballast, and they're waterproof.
On the sides and rear of our rig, we wanted high-quality floodlights. We've always had a great experience with IPF lights (distributed by ARB USA), so we installed the IPF Halogen Back-Up Lamp Kit 816. These lights provide a flood pattern that is perfect for lighting the side or rear of a vehicle and they're 15 times more powerful than a standard back-up lamp. They are rugged, too. The rim is made from polycarbonate, and this combines with a hard glass lens to help prevent lens breakage. The lamp also boasts a high-efficiency reflective mirror and rustproof housing with powdercoated exterior. Each kit includes one light and all necessary wiring including a three-way switch, which allows for manual or automatic operation of the lights.
We're ecstatic about our new lighting. We can now throw light around the entire perimeter of our rig or if need be, just a portion thereof. Special thanks go out to the Redhead's official buildup shop, Attitude Performance, for assistance in installing all of these lights.
Mounting our pair of Lightforce 240 HID's was easy. We simply drilled a hole in our Warn Classic winch bumper and bolted them in. Because of the 240's large diameter we did have to give placement some thought beforehand so that they wouldn't block the stock headlights or the grille. The wiring was easy too, thanks to the 240's internal ballast.
Our rear-facing IPF's mount in the light ports of our awesome new Reunel winch bumper. It took a bit of digging before we found a heavy-duty bumper that could provide the stoutness, hitch, winch mount, and light ports that we wanted for the Redhead. With two rear-facing lamps, we now enjoy more than enough light and the IPF's 120-degree vertical angle and 160-degree horizontal angle means that they light up a wide area.
We mounted our side-facing IPF's on the top of our Continental toolbox. This mounting position is excellent because it places the lamps up high so they can throw light further and they're conveniently mounted out of the way of damage. As a bonus, they can still be used when the top of the toolbox is open.
We wired all of our lights "hot" so we could turn them on at any time whether the Redhead's engine is running or not. Because of this we used aircraft-style switches that can't be inadvertently turned on. We wired the front-facing Lightforce lamps to one switch, the rear-facing IPF's to another, and each side-facing IPF to their own switch.